Breaking Out
by Rundas Prime1
Summary: Jack Morrison and Jesse McCree lead a daring attempt to rescue the wrongly imprisoned hero, Aleksandra Zaryanova, from the most secure prison on the planet. The enigmatic hacker, Sombra, however, has other plans. All are ignorant that the prison itself contains secrets that not even its wardens know. (Overwatch: Ultimate - Part Four.)
1. Chapter 1

Breaking Out

I

It was the middle of the day in New York City, and the sun was reaching its highest point in the sky, light casting a yellow-white prism through the grey spires of concrete, glass, and steel. It was just the time of day that one would try to rob a bank if they very badly wanted to get caught.

The robber wore all black, and a golden skull mask that gleamed blindingly into the teller's face. With the decorative gold leaf inlays that seemed to be everywhere, and the golden trim on almost every object to be found, other than the criminal's skeletal aesthetic, he seemed to be just another part of the scenery.

"Put the money in the bag," the robber snarled, waving a black military-looking rifle adorned with golden skulls in her face. "I won't ask again."

The teller, a blonde-haired woman in a blue suit, obliged, moving slowly. The robber banged his fist on the counter impatiently, but he kept his word, and not ask again. The scene was almost idyllically harrowing, like something out of a comic book or a bad action movie. The bank was filled with kneeling hostages, none of whom much wanted to tick off the guy with the gun. They would merely wait until the police arrived, and they would sort this whole thing out. Hopefully.

If the robber were paying more attention, he might have seen the disheartened expressions on some of the hostages' faces, the looks of those who know that a situation is about to become much more complicated than it needs to be. The robber looked at the clock, tapping a shiny, bladed finger on the table.

"Oh, you know what time it is," someone drawled.

The robber turned around and saw the origin of the voice. It was a brown-haired man with a cigar in his mouth, dressed in a cowboy hat and red poncho. The outlaw turned outlaw-vigilante.

"Jesse McCree," the robber sneered, brandishing his rifle.

"So my reputation precedes me," McCree said with a tip of his hat. "Saves me a bit of time, I suppose. Who are you supposed to be?"

"I don't say my name around children," the robber said.

"Dick?" McCree guessed.

"Don't screw around, Cowboy Curtis," the man probably called Doomfucker said, anger flaring in his voice.

"It ain't my intention to screw around." McCree said. His placating gesture was rendered null by the revolver on his belt. "And I _wasn't_ gonna mention the fact that you look like your pimp dressed you, but then you went there."

Pisstaker snarled again. McCree thought that he might want to look into improving his hostage negotiation skills.

Blue and red flashed outside, and two police officers, one a human male, the other an Omnic, entered the bank, brandishing non-lethal pacifiers designed to look like guns.

"Just in time!" McCree said.

The robber panicked, and aimed his gun into the crowd. Before any could so much as lift a finger to stop him, he fired.

The bullet found a target. A young woman with short brown hair. She fell over, whirling and landing face-first onto the ground, screaming.

"Shit!" One of the hostages shouted. "She's really bleeding!"

McCree unloaded his revolver's full complement at the robber, who ducked behind cover.

"You goddamn maniac!" McCree shouted. He flipped the gun's chamber out, dropped his spent shells, and refilled his weapon. It was practiced, thoughtless instinct. One that proved pointless.

The cops zapped the robber with a taser, and he fell to the ground, convulsing. If McCree hadn't witnessed a shooting, he might have found the robber, so self-consumed in his perceived air of menace put down in such a way, humorous. But he had. An innocent person had been hurt. The thought put him in a haze.

"On the ground!" the human said.

A confused expression colored McCree's face. The robber was already down. Who were they talking to?

The Omnic repeated the human's warning, making sure to address McCree specifically. Calling him 'Cowboy Curtis,' as well.

"I'll come quiet. N-No harm meant," McCree said, putting down his revolver and kicking it away.

"Harm done," the human officer said coldly. The freezing steel of the magcuffs burned McCree's wrists as they clamped shut. The memory of the last time he'd been in the slammer burned in his head. "You barreled into a hostage situation and got that woman hurt. Maybe worse. You're going away for this and every other time you took the law into your hands."

McCree put on a fake confidence that just sounded defeated and rueful. "I've busted out of your county jails before, officer. Ain't hard."

The officer lowered his face close to McCree's, and lowered his voice. "You're not going to any 'county jail.' You and him are going where we put all the dangerous ones."

Dangerous. No one had ever described Jesse as dangerous before. Not to his face, anyway. They grabbed him and threw him into the back of the police vehicle along with the recovering but magcuffed robber. The seats were cracked brown leather. It didn't look like that was their original color, and he didn't much enjoy the idea of sitting in them, but it wasn't as if he could say no.

The doors shut, and the vehicle began on its bumpy way to the police station. Left alone together, McCree looked over at the robber and smirked. "Not bad for your first day as a bad guy, huh?" He adjusted, getting comfortable. "Now, is that outfit an 'id' thing? 'Cause it looks mighty insultin' to a specific mutual friend of ours."

The robber, or as he was otherwise known, Jack Morrison, grumbled. "Couldn't they have taken this dumbass mask off before putting me in here? I can't see a damn thing."

Despite any misgivings, their plan was going off without a hitch. They'd managed to convince the police that Jack, or the man that Jack was pretending to be, was a new supervillain that they'd managed to bag early. And they'd picked up McCree as a 'bonus.' Under other circumstances, it would be unreasonable to hope that they would be sent to a specific prison. But they were the worst of the worst now. And the worst were only ever sent to one place.

"Smile, Jackie-boy," McCree said, putting on his own dopey grin, as if an example. "You're goin' to the Icebox."

…

One week ago…

Winston had Athena pull up a 360-view hologram of himself. It worked better than a mirror. He adjusted his tie, then hovered his hands above the top of his head, wondering whether he should adjust. He wasn't actually sure if he looked good, or acceptable. Before he'd left, Ana had squeezed his cheeks and called him a handsome boy, but she would do that if he was covered in blood and screaming in Yiddish.

"How do I look, Athena?" Winston asked.

"Like a handsome boy." Athena said, her voice echoing through the entire ship. The 'one-speaker voice' rule that Winston was always reminding her of hadn't quite taken.

Winston snorted. "You do realize that the fate of humanity might depend on this meeting?"

"You'll be fine."

The Orca touched down on the industrial district of Moscow, on one of Katya Volskaya's private helipads, cloak engaged. For as generous as Volskaya was even allowing this meeting to take place, she was nervous about what might happen if a talking ape walked in the front door. After all, there was only one person in the world that could be.

The image of a constantly snowed-over Moscow from every movie Winston had ever seen had not shown itself to be true. It was sunny today, the sky clear. In fact, there was no snow on the ground at all. He hadn't noticed at first from the absence of green. Moscow nowadays was just another New York, a jungle of concrete, steel, and glass. Russian weather satellites at work, keeping the climate temperate around this district.

Winston walked on his hind legs, knuckles hanging a mere half-inch off the ground. The black three-piece suit was specially ordered from, -Winston had no idea where Ana acquired such a contact- a very discreet tailor. It fit well. Too well to be comfortable. Other than his armor, Winston wore clothes a size too big for fear that it might rip. No one sold clothes specially for apes. Winston was constantly prepared to hear the sound of fabric tearing, and the whole meeting crashing to the ground.

Volskaya herself, wearing a dazzling white suit like a star against the black tarmac, was waiting on the helipad. Alone.

"Dr. Winston," she said. "Come inside."

"Mrs. Volskaya," Winston said, smiling in a rehearsed sort of way. "No… Protection?"

She remained stone-faced, but her tone implied the tiniest bit of humor. "So you _know_ how bad your reputation is?"

"I just figured you'd want guards. Given yours."

"I've learned recently that trusting anyone else to handle your affairs is bad form."

"And yet, here we are," said Winston.

Smiling with a sharp and cold humor, she led him inside the building, a positively huge library. Winston had seen bigger, but what was most impressive was the volume of paper books gathered in one place. Winston was lead further in, away from the light of the colossal window that was currently the reading room's only illumination source. They saw no one on the way. When it became too dark to see, Volskaya led the way with a battery powered flashlight.

As if sensing the question arising in Winston, Volskaya said, "Security precaution."

"There's no security here," said Winston.

"Exactly," Volskaya said. "This is the oldest building in Moscow. It's a landmark, so no one's allowed to tamper with it. There's no security. No one _watching._ "

"Powerful enemies," Winston surmised.

"No," said Volskaya, ruefully. "Powerful _friends._ "

They came to a room marked, 'Group Study 1,' and entered. It looked rather like a smaller, more austere version of a corporate boardroom like Winston had seen in movies. It was, like the rest of the way, deserted, and utterly dark, save for Volskaya's light.

"Terms?" she asked, sitting down at the head of the table. She motioned for Winston to take a seat. He obliged, surprised he could fit in one.

Winston cleared his throat. "Simple enough in theory," he said. He'd planned a presentation, he always thought his oratory skills were better when supplemented by visual aids. But he had developed a strong impression that Volskaya would not be amused. "We need your support. And the support of Aleksandra Zaryanova."

"I'm afraid," said Volskaya, "Neither of those are within my control. I'm afraid I might not be in control of anything anymore. Why do you think we're here?"

"This _friend_ of yours…" Winston said. "She's blackmailing you. Company damaging secrets."

"That is some of it."

"Your family," Winston said, understanding. "she threatened your family."

"You don't understand the gravity of this situation," Katya said, leaning in almost imperceptibly, her ice-grey eyes doing most of the work. "I interfere with my friend's plans, I otherwise irritate or vex her, my daughter dies, and my company collapses. I lose everything."

"Your dealings with Omnics," Winston adjusted his glasses. "That's still a… a sore spot, I suppose."

Volskaya swallowed.

Winston stammered, realizing how ominous he'd sounded. He patted the air. "Overwatch's intelligence isn't what it used to be, but we still know stuff," he said. "No one else knows, no one else will. At least not from me."

Volskaya's eyebrows rose, detecting the suggestion. "What are you proposing?"

"Your daughter will receive full protection from Overwatch."

"You're going to make me hide?"

"Until we find Sombra and bring her in, I assure you, there's nowhere safer."

"I… I cannot betray Aleksandra. Not again."

Winston frowned, thoughtfully playing with his glasses. "What- What do you mean?"

"Our friend will know, as soon as we make a move. I'm sure of it. Do you think I've _wanted_ to wait here doing nothing? Even if you _can_ protect my daughter, even if _she_ is safe, I fear Aleksandra may not survive the day."

"Zaryanova… I had something in mind, ma'am. All you have to do is say the word, and I can have my people in position. We can do this. We can save them all."

Volskaya pointed her fingers into a steeple. She leaned forward again, not a gesture of strength this time, but intrigue. "And what would you have me do?"

"Secrets are Sombra's power," said Winston. "Take them away."

…

Roadhog heard the sound of a body being dragged across the floor by a chain, of fingernails cracking as they made futile grasps at fractured asphalt, and the apologetic screams. The sound he heard was in Australia, some years ago. He reminded himself that was here. In prison. Right now.

The Hog stared at the scratches in the white alloy ceiling of the cell. If someone looked long enough, it looked like ice. It might also look like bone, or an eggshell, or just about anything else white. It was a goddamn white ceiling. There could be a relaxing nature scene up there if you could imagine it. That wasn't what Hog imagined. Not at all. He closed his eyes, though outside of his mask, it might appear that he stared still. After a month of imprisonment, Hog's patience had just finally began to run bare.

"Rat," said Hog. His voice echoing like thunder down the cell block.

"Hog?" responded the Rat. Though he wasn't giving undivided attention. When Mako focused, he could hear the scritch-scratching of metal on ceramic plastic. If Mako knew anything about the Rat, he was planning his escape, writing it on the walls.

"Progress?" Hog asked.

"I've got a… A… Wait… Are killer whales native to Siberia?"

Hog didn't think so. "No."

"Bloddy fuckin'-" Rat muttered, followed by furious scratching. The scratching resumed, then stopped.

"You got another wall I could use?"

Hog stared at the wall a second. "Yeah," he said.

"Great, I could-" The Rat interrupted himself. "that question was rhetorical, you swollen tosser."

Hog was quiet a moment. "What's rhetorical?" he asked.

"It's when-" Rat stumbled over his words. "-it's when you're bein' a big ninny."

"Got it."

" _Shut up,_ " said a heavily accented voice down the hall. "Some of us are trying to sleep!" It was the middle of the day.

Hog didn't say anything else for a minute. But there was something on his mind. Something about the visions of the past that he'd been replaying. Something he'd forgotten. "Rat?"

"Hog?"

"You ever think there's more to life than… Killin'?"

"Sure there is," said Rat, matter of factly. "Maiming, dismembering, destruction."

"Exsanguination," said the other voice.

"No," said Hog. "No… I'm talkin' about… Never mind."

"Alright," said Rat.

Hog stared at the ceiling a few more seconds. If there was anything he couldn't say to Rat, he couldn't say it to anyone. He wondered if someone might find that sad. He wondered if _he_ found it sad.

"Rat," he said.

" _Hog?"_

"I'm talkin' about… Other things."

"What, like torture?"

"No. I'm talkin' about… Like…" Hog ran through all the words he knew, and picked the best one. "Like… Love?"

The scratching stopped. " _Eww!_ " Said Rat. "You're not talking about _girls_ are you?!"

"No," said Mako. "No. Never mind."

"Good. 'Cause they've got fuckin' cooties and shit," said Rat.

It was a silly thought. All this time alone was messing with his head. Rat was right. No living but the killing, someone had said, once. Hog thought it fit. He was who he was. There was a kind of comfort in that.

…

Aleksandra Zaryanova was too old to be giddy. That didn't stop her from feeling that way on the inside. She'd lived this long by appreciating the small things. Like the yard. Prison sucked. The yard sucked slightly less. The cold air and hot, bright sun bit her face, a feeling that was satisfyingly familiar. She saw some of the other less hardy inmates shy away from the weather, even some of the omnics.

She made a beeline to the weight room, remaining stone-faced despite herself. She nodded to the guard, a pale-skinned man wearing Kevlar armor and a standard security exo-skeleton. There was a process to letting someone in the weight room, that was, unless you were Zarya, and this guard -Dillon by name- was on duty. As repayment, she promised him an autograph, and an appearance at his daughter's birthday party when she got out. They smiled mirthlessly as they thought about that conversation, that deal, unlikely to be consummated, both at once, and Zarya went in.

As she expected, there was already someone there. Two, to be precise. The new arrivals. The Junkers. The large one wore a mask that looked like a leather, glassy-eyed pig. Her skin prickled under the rough bright green jumpsuit she wore, wondering why the warden had let the Junker keep his mask. The rumor was that they'd taken it off briefly in processing, and been so horrified at what they'd seen that they put it back. The small one was climbing on a weight machine, pulling on taut wires and lifting the iron bricks one at a time, clearly not having deciphered its function. Dillon should have stopped him, but perhaps he was just watching, waiting to be entertained.

She picked up two mid-sized hand weights and began her shoulder complexes. It was a misconception that more weight meant more results, one that many beginning, overzealous bodybuilders shared. One that, more often than not, discouraged them before they really began. Being successful in the business meant being more than strong, it meant being smart. This misconception was one that the Hog clearly shared as well. It showed. His body was huge, but soft-looking. He grunted and snorted, forcing the bar, weighed down by five-hundred kilos, into the air and down again. Jealousy, but also pride welled up in her chest. He was almost beating her record. Almost.

She finished, and went over to the squat station, a pleasurable fire tingled in her back and shoulders, now her legs. Zarya sometimes retreated inward as she did this. It was an easy enough exercise, and the old, typical malaise of 'leg day' affected her strongly today. She found herself thinking, the topics of thought beyond her control. She thought of the debrief, no, interrogation. Call it what it was. The one place she might have expected to help.

The man had seated her in a room dimly lit by a single hanging lamp, every cop show on TV had the same one. Uncomfortable chairs, black table, mirrors that one could never be sure were just mirrors. The military cop, gnarled and tough, but unused to dealing with celebrities-turned-vigilante, asked her what she was hiding.

She was a shit liar, but she lied anyway, and said "Nothing."

She had everything to hide. She knew the risks. Sombra would know. Punish Katya for certain, only that if they were lucky. She doubted this cop would believe her story, if he did, that might make things worse still if he decided to pursue Sombra. But if Zarya told this cop anything, she had a pretty good idea that the mysterious blackmailer would know. She glanced at her own reflection in the mirror, imagined someone was there, a purple glow in the dark.

"Who are you working for?" asked the cop. Sombra's unseen eyes were now on the back of Zarya's neck.

"Me," she said. "I decided that Talon should be stopped."

"Do you understand something?" said the cop. "This isn't some CSI bullshit where I ask you what you know because I don't have anything, this is me trying to _help_ you."

"If you have something, you should charge me," said Zarya. The idea that she should play someone repentant of her crimes crossed her mind, but she would be honest before convincing.

 _Being honest? While lying through your teeth? Seriously, Zarya?_ She thought.

"You were reported as colluding with Overwatch operatives in Ukraine," said the cop. "You know what that makes you? Per Petras? That makes _you_ Overwatch."

"I'm aware," said Zarya. Those words being spoken to her, she'd spoken those very same words, hours before.

"You know what being Overwatch makes you? Makes you a goddamn war criminal in peace time. I know you, and you are _not_ a terrorist. People like you, Zaryanova? They don't just go bad. Tell me what the fuck is going on."

"I took matters into my own hands," said Zarya. She leaned forward, cold chains biting into her forearms. "Because I thought to myself, _'Maybe Overwatch is right.'_ I took the fight to Talon because nobody else could. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I did what I believed in." And to her surprise, she did believe what she was saying. Every word.

He looked into her eyes one last time, looking like he was about to flip the table right over. The expression there was not truly anger, but betrayal. It was the same look that flashed across Dillon's face the first time he'd seen her. Aleksandra Zaryanova. Athlete. Celebrity. Soldier. Hero. And now war criminal. How did she _expect_ them to look at her with a resume like that?

As soon as the cop broke eye-contact, Zarya locked eyes with herself again, with the Sombra behind the mirror. Her invisible, imaginary face grinned in victory. And Zarya thought, _Now we're both liars. Happy yet?_

She shook the thoughts away, the smell of sweat and iron brought her back to the now. "You know," she said to the Hog. She grunted, coming up. "We really should have spotters." She didn't expect him to answer, but she'd always talked to someone working out. Before the Hog had showed up, she'd talked to herself.

Hog snorted harder than before, derisively.

Zarya's eyes flitted to the Rat, who still hadn't seemed to figure out the machine. The Hog's arms started to quiver under the weight, but he managed to bring the bar up once more before setting it on the rack.

"Good one," Zarya was about to say, but the Hog interrupted. "One-Hundred," he said.

The Hog sat down heavily, the fabric of his grey jumpsuit stretching against his girth. His breaths were ragged and labored, painful. When Zarya finished with her reps, Hog brushed past her and took the station straightaway.

Zarya placed the two six-kilo weights on the bar. Five-hundred and twelve. Her old record. She hadn't done it in years, not since she'd left the scene and joined the RDF. Perhaps, with how much more free time she'd had, she'd be able to get to it again. Of course she could. War criminal or not, she was still Zarya.

She laid down on the bench and stretched out her fingers, then got into position, starting her first rep. It was a bit harder than she'd expected. Not more than she could handle. She was left to imagine whatever look had found itself on the Hog's masked face, but Zarya was calmly smiling, even against the pain.

Something happened, she wasn't sure what, on rep number ten. Her hands slipped, or something did. The bar came down fast, nearly touching her throat. Too tired to put more force than equilibrium on it, she could only hold it, not push it back up. The guard saw this, and rushed to her aid.

"Get over here!" he said to the Rat. After looking at the camera on the wall, the Rat grudgingly followed the command, but his help was barely felt.

"You're the- You're the bloddy one with all the meat on you!" the Rat grunted. Who he was speaking to, the Hog, seemed implicit.

The Hog finished with his set, and calmly approached Zarya. Laying both hands on the bar, he lifted it back onto the rack. Zarya sat up, sweat somehow beading on her forehead despite the frosty disposition of the atmosphere.

The Hog snorted. "Weird havin' your record tattooed on. Makes it seem like you don't plan on breakin' it."

Everyone looked at the Hog. The Hog looked to the guard, then to the Rat, even more intensely. They finally let go of the bar.

"Be nice to have a spotter," said Hog. "Like to leave, guard. Next time."

The guard nodded, and the Junkers were escorted from the room.

Zarya wasn't sure she liked exactly how that had developed.


	2. Chapter 2

II

Lena Oxton slurped the cup of drinking chocolate, burnt her lip. She chose it because a cold drink would be unacceptable in this weather, and more specifically, tea was a waiting girls drink. The tea that the Orca dispensed, which was typical of most 'brewless' teas, was shit. Real tea tasted better, but you had to wait for that. It was Em who had introduced Lena to tea made the 'old fashioned' way. Before their first date, it had never even occurred to her that the word 'brewless' might not be a man's name. In the face of hard evidence, Lena then had to begrudgingly admit that tea was not _always_ terrible. But it came to a choice: wait for good tea, or drink something else. Lena was not a waiting girl. Even so, she hadn't waited long enough. Jerking the thing away from her mouth, a dot of brown fell from it, through the display of the holo-tablet on her lap, and stained her yellow tights.

Sighing, she gently set down the cup, blue, printed with crème-colored horses, and Recalled. She changed, becoming as she was, where she was, three seconds before. In this case, exactly as she would be, sans lip burn. The stain, frustratingly, remained. She stood, brushing it. She walked a few feet away from the blue and white foam crash chair, which was supposed to be only for high-G maneuvers, but was so much more comfortable than the actual sitting chairs.

With a bit of practice, she could cause the temporal reaction required to revert her quantum state without touching the Chronal Accelerator, but it still wasn't easy. She smacked the device in its dead center, and she returned to sitting in the crash couch. The drop, free of the fabric that had just disappeared, fell onto the floor. She retrieved a towel from one of the cabinets on the wall, and wiped it up.

One minute down. God knew how many more to go.

The leather-shelled gel of the couch felt more like floating in midair. She got her holotablet from the armrest, looked at the drinking chocolate once more, and decided to wait a bit longer. She pressed play, and the video resumed. The two elaborately dressed ballet dancers whirled about the stage, speaking with their bodies as Wagner's music, so iconic that many don't realize they already know it, played along with them. So graceful was the performance that the music seemed to follow the dancers, and not the other way around.

Know your enemy, Jesse McCree had said, and Lena took that to heart. Lena had read the dossiers on Reaper, on Sombra, and on Amelie LaCroix, aka the Widowmaker. She lingered on the last one for longer. Perhaps because she'd met and known Gabriel Reyes, who would become Reaper, in life, and there was nothing about Sombra. She'd gotten sidetracked. Amelie LaCroix had been a ballet dancer, but the production Lena watched was not one that LaCroix had been involved in. LaCroix's Swan Lake had ended in disaster, with the lead and understudy crippled for life. She'd already seen most of LaCroix's work that could be found on the internet, and had found herself unexpectedly appreciating the art form.

"Athena," Lena said, rubbing her eyes. "Status report?"

"Nothing has changed since two hours ago, Agent Oxton," Athena said, her voice a whisper in the corners of the ship.

"Only two hours?" she said. She got up again. Her legs were stiff again from the reversion, she took a moment to stretch out, then ascended to the cockpit, watching the blind white of snow whirl and tear. Somewhere out there was the subterranean Icebox facility. She saw it before the storm acted up, now it was like it didn't even exist. The Orca and everything in it was alone on an artist's forgotten page, or floating in some timeless void where only it remained.

"Plan execution in six hours," said Athena.

Lena rubbed her forehead. "And why do we have to wait here all this time?" This must have been the seventh or tenth time she'd asked.

Athena explained that the exterior defenses of the Icebox were usually disabled. If anyone ever got out, the north pole might well kill them anyway. So they only activated them if their patrol drones detected a threat. According to Winston's notes, there was a thermal, sonar, and radar drone. Lena saw them, hovering busily, watching the ground for escapees. They three black, hovering spheres were identifiable by the distinct arrays atop them. Once the exterior defenses were activated, such as they would be in a lockdown situation, an approach run would be impossible. But an escape run, with the right pilot, could be done.

"Is there at least a way I can let Jess and Jack know I'm alright?" Lena said. She touched the tingling coin that appeared below her ribs at the thought of being shot. She'd recalled further than she ever had for that. Almost a whole hour. Afterward, she'd been afflicted with a monstrous headache for almost the entire next day.

"No," said Athena. You would risk losing your cover. If we're discovered, the prison would go into high alert, lockdown. Morrison and McCree would be trapped for quite some time."

"So there's nothing I can do?"

Athena said nothing. Lena pictured her shrugging.

The snow let up for a second, and in the distance Lena could see the subtle dark ring in the ground. It was the sign that told of the extensive facility beneath. Man-made tunnels and caves coursed through the frozen sea cliff and far down into the earth.

There was another dark shape far away. So small, so distant, Lena was surprised to see it at all. She could have sworn it moved.

"Athena," she said, "can you make a radar sweep of that cliff? That one on the far side of the complex?"

"I can't make any radar sweep without deactivating the stealth drive."

Lena blew a strand of hair from her face, squinting at the spot that she'd seen the shape in, now faded back into the storm. Lena grabbed her jacket and boots.

"Watch the ship, Athena. I'll be back soon."

It was nothing. She knew. But even if it was, it wouldn't take her eight hours to find that out. There was time to kill in spades. And if it did turn out to be something, then she was potentially saving the mission. It might be another drone. A small one that traveled along the ground, but one that might throw off the plan. She punched open one of the smaller doors, and the arctic wind blasted her face before she slipped her balaclava on and ventured out.

She used her powers to stay hidden. Making sure to avoid the drones patrolling the cliff side. It was a simple enough matter. The closest she'd gotten to detection was when the sonar drone had suddenly changed course, right towards her, while she was smack in the middle of an open field. She blinked fast and far, to the nearest rock large enough to hide under, but neither was enough. She dropped into the snow, motionless and silent, face up to watch the drone as it passed. The cold leeched through Lena's gear, but she forbade herself to shiver. It blindly passed her over, not detecting motion.

As soon as the drone was out of range, she reverted to her state from one minute ago, standing, and mostly unaffected by the cold air. She continued towards where she'd seen the brief dark shape, without incident to encounter the other drones, but making more sure as she went not to be seen by the thing, assuming, again, it was anything at all.

Oxton could no longer see the Orca. The storm was worse than ever. She'd become part of the blank page. Even so, she wasn't overly concerned about finding her way back. If there was one thing Lena knew how to do, it was retrace her steps. The ground sloped heavily upwards as Lena found herself face to face with the cliff, atop which the unknown blur was seen. Her confidence in her position suddenly lapsed, but she made her way to the top. There was a cave there, a deep one, from the look of it. The darkness, the shelter, looked almost inviting next to the harsh razor winds Lena stood in.

As she stepped inside, one pulse pistol in hand, she saw something faint and distant. A white glow from very deep in the cave. Lena swallowed. A cave this close to the prison was a huge design oversight. The architects' banking on the snow as a natural anti-escape measure would fall apart if an inmate had discovered this place. She went further and further in, each step as slow and silent as the last. Soon, Lena had found what she'd been looking for this whole time.

She was sitting with her back against the frozen wall, head tilted back, eyes closed. Her hand rested on the wine-colored rifle that was her signature. Lena gripped her pistol tighter. The Widowmaker seemed asleep, more than that. The unaware observer may have taken her purpled corpse visage, and her nigh invisible breathing, to mean that she was dead. But Lena was not unaware. It would be a simple matter to blink forward, unload the clip into the assassin's head, end the career of the murderer of Mondatta and countless others. Something stayed Lena's hand for a fraction of a second. And it was enough. For the Widowmaker's golden eyes then snapped open, a malefic stare ready and piercing. Her rifle was in her hand before she was on her feet. But she didn't fire.

Lena leveled her own gun at the Widowmaker, a terrified imitation, rather than an action of its own.

"Firing that," said the Widowmaker, coolly, "would be the biggest mistake you could ever make. Think for a second."

Sonar drone. It would detect a gunshot with nary a trouble at all, especially with this megaphonic tunnel to bouncing the sound.

For some reason she couldn't place, Lena almost took a step forward. Almost. Before remembering London and the plane. A tiny scrap of metal, shaped like a spider, lurked overhead. No blinking light announced its presence, it merely stayed snug within a crack of ice and stone, grey and quiet like a watching predator.

The Widowmaker smirked, following Lena's gaze to the mechanical pet. "So you have learned." She stood easily, and made her way to the other side of the cave.

"Where are you going?" Lena said. "Don't move."

"Or what?" the Widowmaker said, not gracing her with so much as a glance.

"What are you doing?"

Widowmaker sighed, reached behind a small black box that read, 'ration' and took out a smooth handgun, the same color as her namesake rifle. "As soon as I find my silencer, I'm going to kill you," she said.

"Like I'm going to _let_ that happen," Lena said. "Especially after you _told_ me."

"I'm not going to let you go, either, fly. That would be the worst mistake _I_ could make." She started to screw the cylinder to the tip of the gun. "You can't touch me, you can't fight back. So if you run, I'll chase you. And I'll find you." She fastened the silencer with a final, firm twist. "I have a few hours to kill, anyway."

She fired without warning. The crack of frost and the twang of a ricocheting slug off stone were louder than the frighteningly silent report of the Widowmaker's weapon. Tracer's head blinked away moments before the whispering hunk of lead pierced her brain.

"Run."


	3. Chapter 3

III

Jesse McCree had never actually been subject to a full cavity search. He thought he had. He was wrong. He decided, for the seventh and technically eighth time, that he would never go back to prison. This time he meant it. He and Jack got through processing at about the same time, and had their mugshots taken together. Jack looked stiff, holding the holoboard with his serial number white-knuckled, and seemed possessed of a powerful desire to beat the smug man to his left with it. But he did, for his part, manage to resist it. And soon, they went their separate ways.

McCree had been to prison before. A night or two in the drunk tank, a month for small time larceny. Mostly before he'd joined Deadlock, pillaging towns up and down Route 66 for the better part of his youth. Every time he'd gone, he'd decided that he'd never go back again. McCree didn't much like being told where and when to eat and shit. In light of that, it was surprising that McCree eventually chose imprisonment.

"I'm offering you a chance to something useful," he'd said. His black, dull pupils already having the stillness of death in them, even in life.

Was it something about Gabriel, that man McCree would come to know far too well, or rather the way he'd made the offer that convinced McCree it would be the better option? The way he'd said it was none too eloquent. Far more convincing were the dead bodies littering the bombed out diner, the shotgun trigger on which Gabriel's finger rested, duplicitously relaxed. "Prison" came out of Gabriel's mouth again and again, but even then, Jesse knew what would really happen. Blackwatch didn't take prisoners. He'd be killed. Either in transit or more likely just right here, executed with his hand magcuffed to the table.

So, "Doing something useful," the option Gabriel was offering as an alternative to prison, really was a prison. Just a different sort. One where Jesse fought and killed and spied and did everything he was good at until he died or just wasn't useful anymore. Gabriel offered prison or death. McCree would only see the misguided mercy in this situation much later in his life. Later still, he'd see the true cruelty.

Jesse McCree didn't much like prison, but that day, he learned that he liked dying a fair bit less.

McCree gave a lot more folks prison time than he served these days. Galivanting about in his iconic cattleman's attire guaranteed everyone would remember the name McCree. Stepping out into the yard, the cold air ripping into his hand, face, and newly shaved head, and seeing every single gaze, one by one, lock onto him, he found that such eminent cognoscibility seemed like a much worse idea. There were men and women here McCree recognized, had put away in this very place, and more still that he didn't. But they all knew him.

Despite himself, McCree kept a smug smile on his face and saluted with one finger to the mob. Rule 1 of the Jesse McCree Handbook of Not Getting Your Ass Killed: Always know something someone else doesn't. Failing that, act like you do.

McCree knew from the intel that the one-hundred or so prisoners in the Icebox were sent to the yard in one-and-a-half hour shifts from ten in the morning to two-thirty in the afternoon. McCree walked around the yard, avoiding eye-contact, looking for any sign that Jack had come before him, and found no such sign, which meant he'd be here after him. If Jack left no sign for McCree, it would mean that the target was on first shift. It would take them a day at most to find her.

Jesse looked for the target on this shift. One in three odds were better than slots, and if she were on the same shift as one of them, it made the whole plan easier. He was going to look for the pink hair, but if they'd shaved her head too, of course they did, she would be blonde now. Jesse saw her coming out of the weight room, and recalled another identifying detail. She was fucking huge.

Aleksandra Zaryanova's hair had grown out to a thin, pale buzz-cut, a corner of which was chipped away by the x-shaped scar above one of her black eyebrows. He locked eyes with her, and hoped that it wasn't just the bad guys who recognized him. If he'd had a cowboy hat and poncho on, the response could not be more immediate. After the incredulous blinking fit and flash of uncertainty, her head nodded almost imperceptibly, but she did not acknowledge him directly. That was good. Keeping her cool would be important, not just to prevent the inmates from thinking, however correctly, that the 'heroes' were planning something, but also the wardens. McCree would frame it as if none of this were planned, as if they just happened to bump into each other.

McCree was almost knocked over by a man two heads taller than him. He held up his left hand for balance, realized he no longer had it, stumbled a bit further.

"McCree," said the giant. "Remember me?"

McCree said nothing. He stood up straight. He smiled, putting his face on before turning around and getting on stage. "Howdy," he said. "I don't think I do. I'm gonna take a guess and say I put you away?"

"Put me away?" said the man, hairless brows furrowing over his pale eyes. "I was Deadlock. Or don't you remember?"

"I reckon I would have remembered someone like you. You sure you're not just pretendin' to know me to cash in on my fame?"

"You left me behind on the bank job," he said.

"I've done a lot of bank jobs, you're gonna have to-"

"San Jose. Running out through the sewer? I caught my foot on the ladder. You stopped and looked. You didn't help."

"A thief didn't stop and help you on account of the fat bag of money in his hand? I'm sorry I hurt your feelin's. Wasn't personal."

"I didn't think it was, either. But I guess being a traitor got you a real nice hard-on. You just kept doing it. You like fucking people when they aren't looking? You fucked Deadlock, then you fucked Overwatch. You fucked people all over the goddamn board, McCree. You get off on it."

"Those are some fine words," Jesse's smile didn't break. "Fine commentaries on honor, son. You think they mean a goddamn thing comin' from a scumsucker like you?"

The man's meaty fist came like a viper from behind a rock, smashing through McCree's thoughts into his head, sending him toppling to the floor. McCree rolled over, blinded by the white-hot noon sun before it fell back behind icy clouds. He wiped his mouth, hand coming away greasy and red, and wondered how he'd managed not to dodge. The fog of guilt had paralyzed him, but it shouldn't have. Those words were meaningless. But they were true, no matter who said them.

"Been waiting sixteen years for that," said the man. He was being dragged away by two guards in blue uniform and black exo-skeletons. He spat.

"Was it worth solitary?" McCree calmly shouted back.

Another colossal hand grabbed the back of McCree's shirt, pulling him up. McCree's stomach sunk as he waited to be tossed. First day in the slammer and he'd already caused a riot. It never came. He was propped squarely on his feet.

Zaryanova stood behind him in a circle of convicts, gathered like sharks to taste McCree's bleeding mouth. She grabbed McCree's shoulders and walked him out of there. He shrugged the grip off and continued the rest of the way.

"I appreciate it," said McCree. "But that was the death of any reputation I might have had."

"Eh," she said. "I think you had worse than dead reputation. You had bad reputation. Now you have my reputation. Which is a different kind of bad. But _so_ bad, it is _good._ "

Jesse remembered having a talk like this when he was in prison last time. "Stick with me, and you'll be fine," he'd said.

"Wait," said Jesse. "Did I just… Did I just become your bitch?"

Zaryanova pondered this. "Yes. I think yes."

"Not how I thought this day was gonna go. Oh. Apologies, Ma'am. The name's McCree."

"Zarya." She said, taking hold of his good hand. "And I know who you are. Outside of prison, you have a bad reputation as well. Most recently, they're calling you… 'statutory terrorist'?"

"Yeah," said McCree. "We can talk about Petras all we want later, but look, we've got a plan-"

There arose a chorus of curses and screams accompanied by the percussive thunder of exo-skeleton footsteps, coming for them. McCree's stomach sunk again. For all his preparation, had he still underestimated the Icebox's security? But then why were the inmates screaming?

"Zarya!" shouted the guard, his voice tight and desperate. "Get down!"

The exoskeleton was upon her before she could fully react, slamming her into the wall. She put hands on the guard's shoulders, eyes wide with confusion. "Dillon," she said. "What is-"

"The suit's gone nuts!" Dillon shrieked. "I can't stop it!"

McCree kicked Dillon, and he screamed again, but that did nothing to weaken the suit. It's metal hand pressed into Zarya's upraised arm, a trickle of blood forming beneath the black fingers. McCree grabbed hold of the arm and tried to pull it away, but he was too weak. He doubted he could budge it with both arms. He kicked its thigh, it only buckled slightly.

Zarya ducked, getting her head safer, but her arm was still grasped, slammed against the concrete. Her face contorted into pain.

"Yeah!" shouted a tiny voice in the crowd. "Get her!"

McCree turned his attention to the exoskeleton's back, and saw there a battery clamped in tight. He grabbed at it, undoing the clasps. As if astonished by this possibility, the exosuit jerked backward, throwing McCree off, sending him tumbling across the cold concrete. It's focus momentarily diverted from Zarya, she was released from the grip, and she seized the opportunity, dropping two heavy fists onto the battery compartment, knocking it open. As it turned back to her, she bear-hugged Dillon, taking hold of the battery on his back and ripping it out.

Servos whined as the skeleton turned limp and fell, bending Dillon's knee a little too far. Zarya straightened it out, then asked if he was alright. He nodded, saying nothing, though his uniform was wet between his legs.

Two more guards suddenly rushed towards them, McCree saw their strides break, and then their faces shift into confusion, then horror as they realized that they were no longer in control of their bodies.

The entrance to the weight room wasn't far. McCree grabbed Dillon's keycard, then Zarya's shoulder. "Move now!"

"I am sorry, Dillon," Zarya said, following.

"He'll be fine! Just hurry up and get in." He slammed the keycard against the reader, then they went inside. McCree rested his one hand on his knee, catching his breath. Between the bars of the windows, he could see the guards steadily advancing, shoving aside dumbstruck inmates as if they were hollow vases.

"We cannot hide in here," said Zarya. "They have keys as well." She put forth a good reason, but McCree could tell that she took more issue with the hiding itself.

"We ain't hidin'," said McCree. "Grab some iron." McCree grabbed a two-pound weight from the rack, hefted it once. Looked at her again. "We need to crack them open."

"Be careful," Zarya said. "There are men in those suits." She slid the weights off the bench-press bar, grabbed the bar itself, holding it like a long club.

Looking back down at the two-pound bludgeon in his own hand, he grimaced and said, "Yeah. You don't gotta tell me twice."

The doors opened, and the two exoskeletons went through it, awkwardly at the same time. Zarya tossed a fifteen-kilo iron discus at the legs of one, tripping her, before swinging the bar at the still-standing guard, who threw up his arms in defense, but was still knocked aside. McCree jumped onto the downed woman's back, and took the weight to the battery compartment, shattering its buckles.

"Apologies for the lapse in orderliness, ma'am," he growled.

He dropped the weight and wrapped his fingers around the battery, but the exo-skeleton thrust itself upward, sending McCree's back almost into the ceiling. He landed on a bench sideways, side and spine exploding in bright, nauseating pain. Instinctively sensing the exo's next move, he rolled over the bench just before it bent under the force of a bone-shattering hydraulic-powered stomp.

"Would you stop me already!?" the woman shouted. Her voice was angry, but powered by pure fear.

Zarya whirled the forty-five pound staff into the exo's right shoulder, then its left, severing a cable and sending putrid hydraulic fluid spraying. She grabbed the now useless arm, yanked, sending the disoriented exo spinning drunkenly into the bent bench.

McCree rolled to his feet, grabbing a tiny two-kilo weight a bit bigger than his hand from a nearby rack. He swung it like a brass knuckle in a right hook punch, hitting the helmet of the exo, then ducked, swinging into the crook of the exo's knee. Zarya thrust her pole into the exo and it toppled backward over the bench. McCree, seeing the man's exo starting to get up, tossed the disc at its good arm, knocking it down, before advancing and removing the battery.

"Thank you," said the pilot. "Thank you."

The woman's exo hadn't stood. It had learned that it had no chance of victory in combat. But it had the advantage, no mercy, no compassion, and a built-in hostage. It wrapped its hand around its passenger's neck, squeezing.

"Oh, hell no," McCree snarled.

The woman's horrified, sputtering face turned purple, coughing. Zarya grabbed her to get her up where she could remove the battery, but the exo's free arm grabbed her, holding her fast. Zarya stomped on the guard's arm with all her strength, she screamed in agony as it broke in two, but Zarya had also severed another hydraulic cable, spewing the dirty brown fluid everywhere and restricting the arm's movement.

It let go of Zarya, rolled over. It bent its legs, poising to ram the guard's head into the wall and shatter it. Zarya grabbed the exo's body again, but McCree could tell that it may be still too strong for her. McCree's fingers slipped over the greasy battery, the tiny cuts on them burning as if they'd been dipped in gasoline. Zarya's rock-hard arms, veins bulging with effort, began to tremble. McCree finally managed to loosen the battery, but his fingers slipped again. Growling, heart pounding, he knew this woman might die soon, which only made him more frustratingly undexterous.

Zarya's grip slipped, and the exo lurched forward just as McCree fully removed the battery. It went limp, the momentum of its dying push resulting in the weak thud of the guard's helmet against the wall.

McCree let out a massive sigh of relief that turned into a hooting laughter as he fell backward onto the bench. Zarya stared. They weren't out of this yet. There were many more guards trapped in exos, all of them could certainly rush to this block. In that case, McCree couldn't last forever, even provided the weapons and the bottle-neck the weight room provided. Of course, they might not even attempt that. They might hold their pilots prisoner or ransom, or they might all be asphyxiating themselves to death, crushing their own necks right now.

The PA system shrieked with feedback, then spoke. "You _putas_ happy yet? It was going to be all quick and clean and mysterious, like, _oooh,_ who done it? Now you just fucked it up. Okay. You win. I'm feeling really lazy now, so thanks for that. Luckily, I've got a whole prison full of cabrones who want to kill you without me saying anything. So, boys, go ahead. Kill Aleksandra Zaryanova. And her desperado puto, too."

There was no reaction. Peeking through the bars, McCree saw that the rest of inmates were just as confused and more than a little frightened.

A tiny voice piped up, the same voice that was cheering for Zarya's death. He still couldn't see the source. "Oioioi! We're master criminals in here! No one tells us what to do!"

The voice on the PA grumbled angrily for a few seconds. "Okay," she said in a distressed chuckle. "Okay, that's fine. We'll just structure this a little differently. Kill Aleksandra Zaryanova, and… whoever does it gets to leave. How about that?"

"What happens to the rest of us?"

"You… I dunno, you die."

"Now there's your proper motivation!" said the tiny voice, cheerily. "Let's kill her!"

"No way!" said another voice, the deepest McCree had ever heard. Modulated. An Omnic's voice. "Only the one who kills her lives? What happens if we all kill her right now?"

The PA had no answer. The murmurs became more and more panicked.

"'Fuck you think you're goin'?" said the Omnic. "No one's killin' Zaryanova but me! I've been in here too long! I'm going the fuck home!"

"You? You've been in here half as long as me!"

The words turned to blows, first in the center of the crowd, where McCree couldn't see, then out to the edges, where it became bloody anarchy. Breaking bones, splattering blood and shouts of agony. The tiny voice cackled madly. The voice on the PA ordered the mob to stop but in a disinterested, frustrated tone. McCree could look no longer. He turned back to Zarya sitting on the bench.

"You said you had a plan?" she said. A lump lurched down her throat. Someone screamed outside.

"Not any-fuckin'-more."


	4. Chapter 4

IV

Ferris Mercer scanned his card on the wall, the panel turning from restricting crimson to all-clear green, and the white door slid open. He'd exited his office in the Median, the space between the two prisons that together formed the Icebox, and headed to the Powered wing. Once upon a time, under Ferris' predecessor, there had still been two wings to the prison, but one was for women, and the other for men. The women's prison had been smaller than the other. Statistically speaking, there were fewer woman criminals, and of that number, fewer still were bad enough, dangerous enough, to come here. Nearly thirty years ago, this smaller facility was fully renovated to accommodate a new type of criminal, while their first inmate waited for his new life under 24-7 armed guard by two of a new breed of soldier. By Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes.

Morrison and Reyes. Overwatch. One of an equally historic and poetic mind that Mercer did not fancy he possessed might call them the reason the Icebox exists in its current state. The Omnic Crisis, the most exceptional crisis in the history of mankind, called for the most exceptional men to rise and meet it. By some cosmic law, it seemed, warriors equal to the task at hand were created. Suddenly, everything changed. The paradigm of the very world had shifted. There were Oddities now. As if Morrison and Reyes, and the Soldier Enhancement Program, had opened the floodgates for things and people that were heretofore impossible. The world changed, and law changed with it.

The aesthetic of the Icebox's administrative corridors was different than that of the inmates. Where those rooms were sterile white alloy, these were grey mesh and neon blue. The black and blue uniforms of the prison security team almost seemed to blend into it. They walked past Ferris, acknowledging him with a short nod, recognizing his authority.

Ferris scratched his beard, looking at the monitors of the security team. They showed the map of every corridor in the Powered wing, which was impeccably ordered. Powered and criminally insane were a lethally volatile cocktail. A day without some incident, even as small as minor injury, was very uncommon here. But everything today, on all days, was going excellently. The inmates were given their scant meals and amenities without error. This made Ferris nervous, though his angular, austere face never betrayed emotion, anxiety most of all. All the same, he felt the tide of chaos rising, and he was powerless against it.

For a moment he thought, "Maybe just once you're wrong, maybe some of that grey is making it into your brain." And that was the moment he'd been proven right. A red light flashed on the security monitor. His holowatch lit up to match it, displaying a red alert. Complete failure of the system.

Ferris swallowed a lump of panic, forcing it down like a cheap drink. He watched the security monitors over his subordinate's shoulder, waiting for hell to break loose. But it didn't happen. The Oddities were sitting calmly in their cells, as if nothing were happening. Nothing was. Not in this section.

"Show me Non-Powered," said Ferris, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Now."

The girl looked over her shoulder, frizzy, side-shaved hair bouncing stiffly, momentarily confused. He knew her, just not her name. Ferris didn't remember very many people by their name. She looked back at the monitor and tapped a few keys. But then looked back with a more calcified look of befuddlement upon her doll's face.

"I can't," she said. "I'm locked out."

"Put in a clearance request," said Ferris.

"I did," she said. She'd worked here for years, she knew how clearance between the two wings worked. She was too scared to be offended.

Ferris tapped his watch again, stepping away and out of the monitoring station. "All pacification personnel to the-"

The watch fizzled and popped under blue electrical arcs as the display went wild with flashes of red, blue, and plum purple. Ferris ripped the watch off, dropping it. He went back to doll-faced girl's station and hit a button on her keyboard. She pulled her hands back and splayed them beside her head, staring at him.

"Open channel," he said. "All pacification personnel arm yourselves and report to the Median. We have a situation."

He left that room. He pointed to a passing guard, already armed with a hydraulic exo-suit and riot rifle, and said, "With me."

They went together to the exit, where they would cross the Median into the Non-Powered wing, where all the chaos was certainly going on. But they didn't get as far as leaving. Two guards in exos were already there, but turned in their direction.

"One of you with me," Ferris said. But these men did not comply. They leveled their riot rifles at him. Ferris stood like a statue. Was this part of a takeover? He'd selected each of these men and women personally. He'd worked with these two guards for five and six years, respectively. "Explain yourselves," he said.

"I-I think they want you to get back, sir," said one of the guards.

"They?" said Ferris.

"The exos… They're not responding, sir, they're doing this by them-" the suit cocked the rifle threateningly, cutting the guard's words off with a harsh electric hiss. "…By themselves." He finished. "Permission to advise, sir? Back away."

And Ferris did, all the way back into the Powered Wing. The guard he'd pulled from the hall was now wrestling with his exo, having lost control. He still hadn't given up when the exo suddenly stiffened, contorting itself, and its passenger, into distressingly uncomfortable shapes. He turned around to see ten guards who had followed his commands and reported.

"Fall back," Ferris said through gritted teeth. He tapped his naked wrist, remembered what had happened to his watch, "And hand me a comm." One of the soldiers did, unclipping a device from his belt and handing it over. He opened a channel to security and began assessing the situation before he was going to arrive there. "What's going on here?"

"Someone's taken over the non-powered wing," said the voice of the doll-face. "I can't get through."

"Someone's taking over all the exos that transfer to the Non-Powered network too," Ferris said.

"That would explain why one just blinked out," she said. Ferris heard the second half of this through open air and the comm simultaneously, as he stepped back into monitoring.

" _Our_ network is still online and functional," said Ferris, startling doll-face with his sudden appearance. "Why?"

"Right before the Non-Powered wing's systems revolted, there was a full reset of that network that disabled pretty much everything and opened up all the doors."

"So that's why we still have our half up." said Ferris. "Because whoever's doing this, they're not a complete moron. If they reset our network-"

"-the Oddities would get loose. In other news," said doll-face, tapping keys frantically. "my plan's pretty much fucked because of that. Only way I can think to get control back without access to Non-Powered is a full system reset."

"Which would make _us_ complete morons," Ferris squeezed the bridge of his nose. "With a mob of psychotic oddities behind us."

"So we're fucked," said doll-face.

 _Well and plenty,_ thought Ferris. The only way he could see getting into Non-Powered was a siege with their every available man, but that would mean killing. Not just the escaped prisoners, but every single guard in an exo. That just wasn't something he was willing to do.

"Fucked for right now, doll-face," he said. "Keep working on it, we'll come up with something."

As he left, he heard her say, "Doll-face? Really?"


	5. Chapter 5

V

Amelie LaCroix struggled against the magcuff chaining her to a crate. It was about as effective as the last twenty times she'd done it, and she was still immobilized. Getting captured was bad enough. Being rendered powerless, unable to complete her mission, that made it worse. But the worst thing of all was certainly her jailer's insistence on taunting her for every moment of incarceration. The Overwatch agent, Tracer, approached from the other end of the cave, holding two steaming mugs and a ration bar. She set one of the cups down, the chipped enamel making it look older than either of them, then smiled, indicating that LaCroix should just try to relax.

How had this happened?

Every detail of every assassination Amelie LaCroix carried out created a database. Every mistake she'd made had been burned into her mind. She could nearly relive the past minutes as well as every other mission she'd ever accomplished. It was cold, but she was only perfunctorily aware of this. It didn't affect her. She only heard the snow ripping through the air, feel it blast her face. She had flipped down her tactical visor, its eight eyes displayed the frozen wastes in thermal, sonar, night-vision, and X-ray, and she still couldn't see Tracer anywhere. It was impossible, but there it was, happening.

Tracer had nearly foiled one of her missions, had succeeded in disrupting another. The killing, or rather, the failure to kill, everything related to it, and leading to it, was remembered with cruel clarity. The frustration and cold hatred of failure remained. The details, such as what had been said, were distant echoes. The mistakes here were clear all the same. Don't let Tracer live. Don't let Tracer speak.

"Hiya!"

Amelie's feet flew out from under her in a shower of frigid white. Hands suddenly grasped for her weapon. Amelie pulled the trigger, one, two, three, and a splash of red covered the snow. Tracer was gone just as suddenly as she'd appeared, reversing out of danger, still invisible. LaCroix stood, looked around, seeing no sign of her. She dropped a venom mine behind her, and kept hard eyes on the surrounding storm, doubling back to the cliff wall.

Tracer appeared again. "One more time for the prize!" she said. The smile, covered by her mask, carried in her voice. This was a game to her. Cold anger seethed, but Amelie held off on firing. She waited for her to come closer. As the strange, grasping dance commenced, she kept the gun away from Tracer, making sure never to fire. Amelie managed to rip the mask from Tracer's face in a brief moment when the exchange ebbed into her favor. She counted seconds, one, two, three, then sent one slug through Tracer's leg. She wasn't smiling now.

As expected, she recalled out of danger, appearing where she'd been three seconds ago.

"Now, where were-"

Amelie thrust the barrel of the pistol into the throat, silencing her, then kicked her to the ground. She called to mind with perfect clarity how her colleague had once immobilized Tracer. She straddled her then, one leg on each arm, so that she could not get away. She pressed the barrel to her forehead. Easy.

"Au revoir," Amelie said.

"Same," Tracer said. She disappeared. She hadn't touched the device, she couldn't have.

Amelie's shock lasted one second. It was too long. Long enough for Tracer to come from behind, to grab her arm and twist it around. The gun slid from Amelie's hand as the nerves throbbed, her fingers snapped open against their will. Amelie turned around, stumbling forward slightly as Tracer released her hold. The pistol was in pieces now, expertly disassembled. This shouldn't have surprised Amelie, either. Every cadet could take apart a weapon. But Amelie had made another mistake, she hadn't thought of Tracer as a soldier. She'd underestimated her again.

In a blue flash, the pieces disappeared before hitting the ground.

"You can look for those in a few minutes, if you like," Tracer said.

"I will kill you," Amelie said. She lunged, but Tracer blinked out and away.

"Not if you can't catch me," she taunted, even as Amelie was stopping. "No guns, remember?"

" _Va te faire foutre,_ " Amelie said.

"I don't get it," said Tracer. "Radar drone's not far away. Don't you think we ought to get back inside?"

"You're an idiot," Amelie said. "You're running because you can't fight me. You know it. You threw away your only card when you should have killed me with it."

"No way. Not my style, love," Tracer said. "I just want to talk for a minute. I saw you had that ration in your cave, that tasty?"

"Do not torture me with this. The drone is coming. It will see you."

"All the more reason to get moving, then, innit?"

Tracer turned her back, walked forward. Amelie smirked as the puff of purple sprayed from the snow. The mine she'd laid, that Tracer had just walked over. Tracer breathed in the innocuously sweet scent with confusion before realization and terror set in.

Amelie darted into the cloud, wrapping Tracer's throat in her arm while she undid the strap of the chronal accelerator with her other hand. But Tracer was gone again after only the first buckle was lifted. A shriek of rage bounced painfully in Amelie's chest as her gauntlet was pulled off and tossed into the snow.

"No more of these then for you either," said Tracer, circling back around to Amelie's front.

"I will kill you," Amelie snarled again.

"Sure, love. Come along now," Tracer said, spinning playfully. Amelie caught a glimpse of something under Tracer's nose before she wiped it away casually. A trickle of blood, stark against her fair skin.

In the relative warmth of the cave, Amelie had an opportunity to ruminate on this detail. She'd landed a few hits, but none around the face, not any good ones. Then it hit her. Tracer had been jumping through time like a frog, with more frequency than Amelie had ever seen. It was taking a toll. She was pushing to herself to her limit. Amelie remembered this as she did every useful detail.

Amelie's eyes followed the steam up to Tracer's. The pilot took a nibble off the green-wrapped brown brick of the ration bar and tilted her head, evaluating the taste. "Not bad," the face she made seemed to say.

"What's up?" said Tracer, cheek full of food.

Amelie scowled, twisted her hand slightly under the chafing magcuff.

"You don't have to be like that," said Tracer. "You know, I feel like we really connected back in London. You know, the time when you didn't just laugh and run away." Amelie didn't remember exactly what was said in London. She remembered everything, down to her own reactions to the words, but the words themselves had all been removed. They weren't necessary to understand the lesson, -Don't let Tracer speak or live- and so it was just as well that they were gone. "Standing offer, by the way. I'm taking you back to Overwatch, but you don't have to come back as a prisoner."

"I can't seem to decide how stupid you actually are." said Amelie. Her sharp tone was part shocked and part insulted. "You think for a second that anyone other than you will accept that? You might be that stupid, but Morrison isn't. He'll kill me. Whether I'm a prisoner or free."

"Jack's... not... Jack's not like that," Tracer said. She was a terrible liar, and couldn't seem hide the fact that she knew nothing. "Not anymore."

"Morrison is still a soldier," Amelie said. "Soldiers kill. And we're at war, if you haven't noticed."

"That may be true," said Tracer. "But you're on the wrong side of it." She pointed her finger, "and you wouldn't be on this side if you had a choice. They took you and made you a slave. I know you're not a killer, Amelie."

Hearing the name outside her own mind stung somehow. No one had called her Amelie in years, not while anyone knew she was looking. She was Widowmaker now, or else agent LaCroix. Amelie leaned forward and practically spat the correction. " _Yes I am_."

Outside, Amelie saw something change. The slightly golden blur of snow outside the cave turned purple. The ring of lights outside changed. The Icebox was no longer under its wardens' control. All according to plan, right on schedule.

Tracer must have noticed something, the shift in Amelie's gaze tipping her off that there was something more to see outside the mouth of the cave than a white blur. She started towards it, slowly, at first. Then bolting out in an almost blind, desperate rush.

Amelie used her free hand to reach under the crate she'd been resting on and removed two venom mines from their secret place, pocketing them. Maybe she could escape now. Maybe. But she'd wait until it was sure. After all, she doubted she would get another chance. These two mines were all she had. They were the trap. Amelie just had to figure out the trigger, and the bait.

Tracer certainly did seem to know a lot about Amelie LaCroix. The old Amelie LaCroix, at any rate. More than was healthy, perhaps? Amelie smirked, feeling the slightest swell of emotion in her cold chest. The bait was taking shape. In her uncharacteristic rage, Amelie had almost squandered a rapturous opportunity. Tracer wanted LaCroix, wanted her to make a choice. She'd get LaCroix then.

"What's out there?" Amelie asked, cooing like a dove.

"Why are you really here?" Lena asked, suddenly all business for once. "What are you planning?"

"I can't tell you," Amelie said.

"Come on," Tracer said, desperate for any morsel. "Talon's planned something, and you _can._ They can't control you anymore."

"I can't," Amelie said again, sharper, but intoning a teetering worry in it. "And yes, they can."

"We're heading back to the Orca," Lena said. She teleported to Amelie, switching the magcuff.

Amelie grabbed Tracer's wrist, but not in a combative hold. "I am afraid," she said, tightening strings of anxiety in her voice. "This is why I ran back to Talon. Why would anyone not kill me for what I've done?"

Tracer looked down at the cold hand wrapped around her arm with an uncertain expression. She stopped breathing for a moment, dumbstruck, then her breath came back, heavier than before. The girl was so close. It could be so, so sickeningly easy to end it right now, right here. But Amelie breathed in deeply, shunting herself into her old role.

"O-On your feet," said Tracer, her mind snapping back from wherever it was.

"You could snap my neck and leave me here," Amelie said, widening her golden eyes. "It would be more dignified for the both of us."

"Not my style," Tracer said again with a friendly smile, not seeming to notice that she'd said it before. "I won't let Jack touch you. You have my word."

"How can you stop him? He's-"

"He's different," Tracer interrupted. "He's… Different now."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Amelie said.

"It kills me to say it," said Tracer, reconsidering. "But you'd have a better shot- I mean a better go if you're in cuffs."

Amelie curled her lips downward in girlish distress. "If you think so…"

"Lena," she said. "My friends call me Lena. It's good to meet you proper, Amelie."

Amelie had to fight her creeping smile now. The irritation that had prickled her mind at the last mention of her name had been replaced by strange satisfaction.

Amelie slid her hand slowly down 'Lena's' wrist to her hand, and shook it, twisting the spidery smile into a nervous, tentative one, and said, "Amelie LaCroix. Pleased to make your acquaintance."


	6. Chapter 6

"Absolutely not," said Katya Volskaya. It had been working. It seemed that she was going to be receptive to the whole hare-brained thing. But then came the big push. The catch that Winston had fully anticipated, but still hadn't managed to work around. Volskaya stood, pacing the small, dark study room in a way that showed she was at least trying to remain calm, even she wasn't fooling anybody. "I thought you understood this. I think now I was wrong."

"Hold on a minute," Winston said, patting the air with his gargantuan hand, trying to make his voice as gentle as he could make it. "Hear me out."

"This isn't a solution," said Volskaya, turning her icy eyes back to him.

"It's the start of one," Winston said, remaining seated and calm. With his sheer size and strength, and the fact that they were utterly alone and in a security blind spot, he could have overwhelmed her, scared her into listening, even if not complying. He didn't do it, but the fact that it even occurred to him as an option was something he didn't like about himself. "It's also a solid push back. Sombra can't use your secrets against you if they're not secrets."

"I am over if this gets out," said Volskaya, "You're saying I should shoot myself in the head instead of handing Sombra the gun."

"It's not," said Winston. "Look, if Sombra leaks the info, they get the whole story raw. Everyone gets the whole story. Raw. Your enemies get to choose how the information develops. And I'll let you know that the first thing the vultures are going to pick at is the fact that you tried to hide it."

"So… Bullet, head," Volskaya reiterated.

"It's getting out in front of this thing. If you release this information, you release it on _your_ terms."

"I cannot do this," said Volskaya.

"Then what do you do?" Winston said. His eyes now pierced the glass of his spectacles, and the darkness ahead, slamming into Volskaya with an almost physical force. He suspected that for the first time, he had her full attention. "What's the alternative? Live in fear? Cower until the day Sombra gets sick of you? Think ten years from now. Think next year. You've been a perfect servant, but Sombra's done with you. Sombra doesn't need you. Doesn't need to control you, in fact, you're better off gone. She leaks this, and all the dirty, cowardly boot-licking she's forced you to do to stay safe. What will you do then?"

With a sudden icicle of fear impaling his heart, Winston remembered that he was talking to arguably the most powerful woman in Russia. He'd been calling her 'servant,' and 'boot-licker.' Not the best negotiation tactic. He felt like hitting himself, and his immediate instinct was to backtrack. But before he could open his mouth to apologize, Volskaya spoke again.

"Servant," she smiled a wry, tortured smile, laughing at someone. Not Winston, that was sure. If the turning gears of anxiety turning behind his glasses had shown themselves at all, she hadn't seen them. "You know, that's what built this country into what it was. Revolution upon revolution to be servants no longer. And we finally won. Finally."

She turned, placing her hands on the table, and staring at her own reflection. She scrutinized it as she spoke, as if seeing it for the very first time. "When the Crisis came, we would not become servants again. When it looked as if the machines would kill us all, we didn't go running to the UN. We fought to the last man. And we won. Without you. And we all remember that glorious day when we took back our world."

She turned her gaze back to Winston with renewed steel. "That is why I can't do it. Because we remember how we won. By our strength. By the strength I must represent. If I reveal that I am colluding with our would-be oppressors. It means I am no longer strong."

Winston looked down at the table, at his own reflection, but wasn't nearly as fascinated by it as Volskaya had been. He tried to think about how to spin his counterpoint. He even considered for a moment that she was right. What good was coming out ahead if the country fell apart without a strong leader? After a moment, Winston started to speak, he was three words in before he looked to Volskaya. "I think the greatest strength is… Admitting sin."

"Sin?" said Volskaya.

"I'm… Not trying to pull this anywhere religious," Winston stammered. "Not that… there would be anything wrong with doing that, I just… Admitting mistakes. I think that's… Well, that's extremely powerful."

"Really?"

"Take… Take Jack for instance. Commander Morrison. I… but you wouldn't know…" he thought again, scratching his head. "The Mindflayer incident? Remember? Terrible thing. He took control of all those people, almost destroyed Los Angeles. There were people in LA who weren't mind controlled, but still took part in the riots and looting. They all pleaded not guilty, the 'Mindflayer Defense' was rampant, clogging up the court systems. They eventually pardoned everyone involved except Mindflayer himself, but then… Then they… Well, they weren't… right. Some people got off that…"

And like that, Winston forgot where he was going entirely.

VI

Jack Morrison was alone in his cell, pulling himself up on the doorframe, then down, then up. Was he at fifty? Sixty? He wasn't sure, but he could stand to do a few more. He'd never liked waiting. When he was Supreme Commander of Overwatch, he'd managed to discipline himself. Tactics were about placement and timing, and timing meant waiting. In the game of geopolitics, waiting could mean weeks or years before the proper time presented itself. Waiting was part of the job. But then, he awoke from his coma. And while there was a time where he waited, first in the hospital, then on the cold streets of Berlin, where he assessed the situation fully, soon that time was over. By the time he raided the old Watch installation in Colorado, things were moving at breakneck speed, blurring together. He was in a race against time to reform Overwatch, a one-man guerilla operation where waiting might mean discovery, capture, death. He'd fallen out of practice with waiting, much further than he'd ever expected.

But perhaps the waiting wasn't truly the worst part of it. It was what he was waiting for. Waiting to see if their plan had really gone off without a hitch. Lena Oxton offered herself up as a sacrifice, something to make Jack's debut as a supervillain more convincing. Lena's ability to revert to a previous quantum state would all but guarantee survival of the bullet, even after as long as five minutes, if she pushed her powers and the chronal accelerator to their limits. Failing that, Captain Amari, or Shrike, as she now went by on comm, had been standing by to administer medical care.

He half expected that when he, Zaryanova, and McCree made it to the extraction point, they might meet Ana or Fareeha piloting the Orca instead of Lena. He'd learn that there was a complication. Lena hadn't fully recovered, as they'd anticipated. Even if she was fine, that wouldn't help the fact that Jack had shot Lena. He'd fired a real gun, real bullet, into one of his fellow agents. All so that he would look the worst and most dangerous he possibly could. He just didn't know. He couldn't. Not until the mission was over. So he'd focus on that. Make it up to Lena later.

He dropped to the floor, having worked up a sweat that dampened the center of his white undershirt. The arms of his prison grey were tied around his waist. He had no towel in his cell, so he folded his bed out of the wall and sat on it, air-drying.

A hellish screech echoed through the cell block. Before it had fully dissipated, a voice arose behind it, loud, irritated, but pretending enthusiasm.

"Buenos dias, putas!" it said, and Jack cursed inwardly. "I'd like to play a little game. Everybody look at the viewscreen in your cell. I'll know if you aren't."

Jack looked, a tight lump forming in his throat. A map of the Icebox, a map he knew well, had appeared on the viewscreen, lines of red and green coursing through it.

"You're going to head to the yard and kill somebody. Sounds fun, right? Well, the last group of idiots I put on this job fucked it up and decided to kill each other. I'm done. You kill _Aleksandra Zaryanova_ ," Zarya's mugshot appeared on the screen, she held the holoboard that bore her serial number with a face of stone and sad eyes. "And I'll let you live. If you try to escape. I kill you. Got it? Good."

The red lights on the cells started to beep and turn green chaotically. There arose whooping cheers, and terrified whimpers. Soon the entire block was green. All but Jack's cell. He pounded the door, watching the inmates streak past along the path indicated on the floor by green arrows.

"Hey! Someone open this up!" he shouted.

A purple skull appeared on Jack's viewscreen. "Not you," said the voice. "I know who you are. How'd a boyscout like you get in here?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I-"

"Did little Dr. Zhou turn you in? For what you put her through? I wouldn't blame her."

"Open this door! Come on!" Jack kicked the door, his knee pulsed arthritically.

"Buh-bye, Soldier. Have fun thinking about your friends dying."

"Goddamnit! Hey!" Jack stopped, fist against the door, head drooped. This was far too soon. He'd known Sombra would intervene, but so quickly? There was something wrong. A leak, a security breach, maybe some preparation tipped Sombra off. Every single one of Volskaya's actions was under scrutiny, it could be anything. And now he was trapped in here. Still waiting.

"Technical difficulties?" said someone new. His voice was high-pitched, mid-pubescent.

Jack looked up and saw an Omnic in prison grey outside his cell. His face was eerily detailed, thousands of moving parts, like fragments of stained glass, to give him a full range of human emotion. His smiling teeth, blinding silver, stood out sharply from the glossy black of his body.

"Either let me out or go on your way," said Jack. "I've been taunted enough today."

"Touch-ey!" said the Omnic, smiling wider, though that had seemed heretofore impossible. "You haven't even been in here two days and you're already veteran levels of grumpy."

"As I said," said Jack.

"We got off on the wrong foot, clearly," said the omnic. "Thaddeus Ellis." He offered his hand, giggled, 'remembering' the cell door, and put it down. "I'm so sorry, sir." After Jack stared for a moment, unwilling to repeat himself, Thaddeus then said, "There _is_ actually a point to all this, so if I could just get your name?"

"Joe," grumbled Jack.

"Well, Joe," said Thaddeus. "I find myself in a bind. I want to kill Zarya, for the benefits that entails. But I am… Well, my computational ability pales in comparison to our assailant. And as you can see, I am on the less physically robust side. Clearly that's not the case for you."

"You need muscle to kill Zarya," said Jack.

"Muscle with a brain is even better!" said Thaddeus, clapping. His black eyes glinted with delight.

"Fine then," said Jack. "Seems like we want the same thing. So let me out."

"Are you _sure?_ Because you might just be telling me exactly what I want to hear. Just to get out."

"Of course I want to get out. But that's the game we're playing, isn't it? We need each other."

If there was any consideration whatsoever, Thaddeus' computerized brain did it in no time at all. "I _do_ love muscle with a brain," reiterated Thaddeus, scanning a keycard. "Makes things so much easier."

Jack could take the runt down now. But he'd be expecting that. This omnic acted like a kid, but there was an eternity of intelligence in his eyes. He undoubtedly had some countermeasure in place. So Morrison waited just a bit longer, and his exit from his cell was uneventful.

He cracked his knuckles and neck, and said. "So… The yard."

The inmates had all gone before them, leaving the prison a silent, wrecked place indicative of former chaos. Jack found it hard to believe that such a place had ever been inhabited. The occasional guard exo stood watch above them, motionless arbiters holding their non-lethal riot weapons to their chests, transparent polycarbonate shields at their sides. Their passengers, former pilots, were purple-faced and hanging limply in the black frame, faces death-frozen in terror. Jack kept a straight face, glancing occasionally at Thaddeus, who seemed to take all this in with amusement rather than sickness.

All the while, Jack wondered why these sentries weren't attacking. Sombra had wanted him out of her game. Why was she now allowing him to enter it without a fight? A handful of exos could kill him easily and quickly, but they let him pass. Jack counted this as a blessing, but kept it in mind. These kinds of things had a way of coming back and biting.

Jack paused at the prison yard door. There was no way to see through to the other side, save to open it. When he did that, everyone on the other side would know he was there. He decided to wait by the side.

"Open it up," he said to Thaddeus. "I've got your back."

"No you don't," he said, cheerfully. He tossed the key card to Jack, who caught it out of the air. He smiled, taking up position at the opposite side of the door.

Jack grimaced drily, and scanned the card.

"Over there, over there _over there!_ " someone shouted, the voice was familiar, though Jack could not entirely place it. Orbs of explosives began flying out of the door. Jack ducked behind the door again, feeling a blast of heat on his shoulder. Too close.

"Fortune always does favor the cautious, if you ask me," said Thaddeus.

"Now what, genius?"

"You're the muscle," Thaddeus said. "you think of something."

What he wouldn't give for that pulse rifle. Even the black one with the stupid skulls on it. Jack tried to think of some way to signal Zaryanova, if she was in there. For a long moment, filled with blasts of loud fire, no solution availed itself. But then…

"Can you hack this terminal?" Jack asked. "Get me the weight room?"

"What good will that do?"

"If Zarya is in there, that's where she'll be. It's a defensible position."

"So we call and tell her we're killing her?"

"Something like that."

There was the possibility that Sombra would detect their intrusion. Jack figured Thaddeus should know that well enough, and didn't mention it.

"Boss?" said the unexpected voice of Jesse McCree. His face, lagging terribly, appeared on the wall panel in a series of pixelated stills. Jack hadn't seen him since processing, so now was the first time witnessing his clean-shaven face and brown stubbled scalp. The look didn't suit him. He couldn't imagine himself looking any better at the moment.

"McCree, listen. On three, run out of there. He can't shoot all of us."

" _They,_ " corrected McCree, "and yeah, they can."

"The plan works," Zaryanova's voice said. "On three, run out at them. Two seconds are all I need."

"You've already made a friend," said Jack. "Good job."

McCree smirked. "That mean I'm gettin' a raise?"

"Joe? What are you people yammering about?" said Thaddeus.

"Sorry, kid," said Jack. "You're getting double-crossed."

On three, Jack grabbed the omnic's neck, and they rushed into the yard. The skinny man stood in the center of the yard, held in his hand a cobbled-together mass of steel and wire, feeding from a clip of exo battery packs. A manic grin spread across his rodent face, and Jack recognized the creature in full. The very second that Jack thought he was about to get a hot sphere of explosive in his face, a disk of cold iron slammed into the rat's cheek, knocking him to the ground in a rolling heap.

Another disk whirled into the hog's gut, but it bounced off like a raindrop. However, the three-hundred pounds of Aleksandra Zaryanova that barreled into the hog next did the trick. She didn't stop at putting her weight on him. She showed discipline, pressing down on the fragile center of the hog's chest with her toe.

Jack threw Thaddeus down as well, onto his back, applying pressure from the arch of his shoe to the back of the Omnic's neck.

"We had a deal," he squealed.

Jack said nothing.

The rat had already made his way to his feet, the underside of his eye sliced open, leaking red. "Get stuffed, wankers!" he shouted, and produced four grenades from his pockets.

"Hold on now," said McCree.

The rat threw them, at each of the respective targets with no regard for the disabled prisoners. Jack dodged away, as well as Zarya and McCree. The Hog stood with shocking speed for such a rotund figure, but did not make a move to rejoin the fight. He remained in place, caught the grenade, and tossed it in a new, harmless direction, it exploded, bending the basketball hoop with fiery force.

" _Listen,_ " the hog said, harshly.

No one quite knew what was going on, not even the Rat. The Rat did listen, either because of the confusion, or the intimidation, or because he was out of weapons.

Thaddeus had scrambled to his feet, whimpering and panicking. McCree almost darted after him, but something whizzed past him with blinding speed. The white sheets wrapped around the Hog's wrist, tipped with a make-shift hook, was extended, flying out. With some incredible skill, the Hog manipulated the tendril of cloth to wrap around Thaddeus' legs and trip him.

"You too," said the Hog.

"What the ever-lovin'-?" said the Rat. He was confused at his partner's behavior, for sure. But that was not all.

The cloth tore as the Hog was yanked down to his face. Jack looked to see what the Rat already had. Thaddeus' expression had turned to something horrible and inhuman. He'd come to all fours, the joints in his legs reversed, so that he walked like a spider. He snarled, skittering away, spitting guttural noises.

Thaddeus latched onto the wall, leaving five-pointed impressions wherever he stepped. Not one to be deterred, the Hog was up and at it again, launching bits of molten scrap from his weapon. But Thaddeus disappeared through a window high above, ripping out iron bars like they were nothing, and throwing them, clattering, to the ground.

McCree glanced around at his squad with a look of puzzlement that they all shared and said, "Could this maybe just be a goddamn normal-ass prison again?"

"I want a deal," said the Hog. He stood calmly, as if nothing strange had occurred at all. Of course, none present had occasion to see whether he was ever disturbed by the events of yester-moment on account of his mask.

"Are you in a position to be making deals?" Jack asked after a dazed moment. They'd all seen what had just happened with their very eyes, and if Jack was being honest, he'd seen much stranger. Besides, time was of the essence. This needed to be resolved now. "You're out of ammo, and there are three of us, two of you."

"I count four of us!" said the Rat. "I count for three!"

"Ignore him," said the Hog. "He gets rhetorical."

McCree opened his mouth as if to correct him, pointing his finger, but then thought better, and stopped.

"Look at that weapon," said Zarya. She asked, "Did you make that with things that were just lying around here?"

"Yeah."

"Jackie, I hate to admit it, but weapons are gonna be a mighty valuable thing to have."

"I'll forgive you both because you weren't there," Jack said, recalling the Middle East. "But these guys are Talon. We can't trust them."

"Are you forgetting somethin' else?" said the Rat to the Hog. "This guy's one of the tossers what threw us in here."

"Look," said McCree. "None of us have got much reason to trust one another, other than the fact bein' that we are in a deathbox operated by a crazy woman that wants to murder all of us."

"Not all of us," said the Rat, "just her. Killin' her is my ticket out of here."

"You really think that?" said Zarya. "You do not know. She might just kill all of us either way. She is angry, not rational. She is torturing us. Toying with us. That is the only reason we are not all dead."

Torturing you, Jack thought. For what you Katya did. For what we did.

"Gotta kill Sombra," said the Hog. "Only way out."

The Rat chewed his lip. Even he had to know that fighting the whole facility alone was a fool's errand. He may be a fool, but he didn't want to die. "Fine. Fine. If this ninny wants to work with you lot, there's not much _I_ can do about it, is there?"


	7. Chapter 7

VII

Zarya remembered well the feeling of powerlessness. On the farm that had been her home of her early life. She was the one who was relegated the tasks that needed the least strength. For all her girth, which was remarked upon by others her age as unusual, there was not much that she could do. She couldn't manage a single pushup, not a real one. If anything required heavy lifting, that would be the domain of her father. Or, as he'd aged, increasingly her brother.

"Little Zarya needs help again," they'd say, never with derision. "Little Zarya's gone and got stuck. Zarya swung the gate over too far."

She'd learned to be smart and avoid the problems that couldn't be solved with her own skill. And she taught these things to her diminutive sister, at least what she could understand. This gave her no end of pride. Inwardly, however, she knew that this was not a solution. She had become afraid of what she couldn't do.

Her brother's comics spoke of a hero whose skin could turn to steel. His size wasn't something that made him too clumsy or too big for anything, but was rather another tool in his favor. After school, Zarya would sometimes try the weight set they kept in the gym, but she always walked away, red-faced with embarrassment, and exhaustion, and rage, and loathing. She took up proper position, by all accounts, did everything right. She couldn't even get the bar up off the rest. She continued to read the hero's adventures long after her brother had grown out of them. She even kept his old comics after he thought he'd thrown them out. Zarya would never be like him, she thought, but she could dream.

The hero had discovered his power jumping in front of a runaway tractor to save his own sister. An act of selflessness befitting the warrior he'd become. Zarya, on the other hand, stood and watched. The Crisis had come to Siberia. A possessed train, bearing the futurist logo of Omnica on it's side, tore itself from the tracks and tumbled over her sister, crushing her tiny body, so loud that it drowned the crack of bone and squelch of flesh. Zarya wasn't fast enough to reach her in time, even if she was, she couldn't have gotten away. And she would never have stopped the roaring juggernaut of steam and steel, wouldn't even slow it down, no matter how heavy she was. She knew this. And she was afraid of it. Her faults had caught up with her, and were all the worse for their delay.

"We are here, Zarya," they said. "Did you think we'd never come?"

It was silly to think she would ever stop a train. But that day, even as her family fled the demon machines ravaging their old home, she decided she would never be powerless again. She thought of returning to the village often, of helping with the restoration. But it was entirely moot. What good could this cow of a girl do there?

She went to the new room, a different one, though it also stank of stale sweat and old metal, with none of the useless furtiveness she'd exercised before. The results might have been the same as always, had Zarya not resolved that they would not be, would never be again.

When she'd finally managed to lift the weight, it had caught her off guard. It dropped down toward her throat like a dull guillotine, and Zarya's fear almost paralyzed her again. It was just one more thing she couldn't do. One more thing she couldn't stop.

"The train is coming for you now, Zarya," she thought. "And it will kill you if you do not stop it."

She forced everything away. Every piece of her that told her she could not, she put on hold. Her arms locked into place, trembling, stinging trunks of thick, useless flesh, the bar inches above her neck. She was alone there. Her life was in her hands alone. In retrospect, she realized she may not have died, only been unable to speak for a while, and utterly humiliated. But the fear was necessary.

Zarya screamed, actually screamed, not at the bar, the train, but at her body. Move. You can move. It's just steel. It's not breaking you. It can't break you because if it could, it already would have.

The bar went up slowly, but up it went. Higher, higher, arms burning, Zarya sobbing the whole while, until finally, her elbows were straight, a few inches above the bar rest.

She sat up, squeezing her arms, breathing heavily.

" _I cannot do this,"_ she said. _"I cannot do this."_

She cupped her face into her hands and sat for a while before she realized the truth. She _could_ do this. She had just done it.

"Howdy, Big Z," said Jesse McCree. "You still awake in there?"

Zarya realized that she had dozed. She had been in the middle of a butterfly stretch when she had, and now realized that she must have been sitting there for a full five minutes that way with her eyes closed, looking like some sort of meditating monk.

She stood, taller than the cowboy, brushing the dust off her prison greys. She leaned against the cold wall. The temperature had been dropping, slowly but steadily. Nowhere close to the temperature outside, but closer every second. She scratched her head, no longer surprised at her lack of hair. She looked up, intending to check on the Rat's progress.

"Rat's still workin'." McCree said. "He'll be done in a minute or so."

Zarya nodded and said. "Then is there something else?"

"Yeah," he said. "Why'd you trust him? The junker?"

"You are trusting him, no?"

"Wasn't my idea to," McCree evaded. "That was yours."

 _His_ _idea, actually. But you are correct, I did agree._ Zarya thought, then said. "Because he did something for me he didn't have to. Something maybe he should not have done, but he did."

"He did you one favor. That make him trustworthy?"

"Maybe not. But… Not everyone here, I think, is a criminal."

"It _is_ a prison, Z," said McCree. He tapped his lips with two fingers, trying to make it look like a casual, even thoughtful tick, but Zarya knew he was craving a cigar.

"Maybe the word I'm looking for is…" Zarya paused, taking a long blink as she searched for a word, and was disappointed with the simplistic one she pulled up. "Bad. Not everyone here is bad, I think."

McCree raised his eyebrows. "Seems to be some compellin' evidence to the contrary, Ma'am."

"Jack is evidence. He is here. He is not bad." She shrugged. "You are here. Rat and Hog, I do not think that they are bad either."

"Jack seems to reckon so. From my experience, I can't much say I disagree about the Rat."

"Tell me, did you notice the tattoos on their hands?"

"Australian Liberation Front," McCree said. "I saw. So what if they nuked half of their country?"

"My country was one of the lucky ones. We pushed back the omnics. At heavy cost, but by our own strength. Australia did not fight their part of the war, Overwatch did. I think if after everything, we moved our own people to make room for clanks, I would have done the same. Same feeling, different circumstance. Different result."

"That's… Harsh," said McCree, sucking air. He'd winced at the omnic slur. "What's this feelin' then? I ain't sure I follow."

"We all refused to be powerless," said Zarya. "History punished them for it, blessed us. I do not claim to know why. But this feeling, resilience, fortitude, is a good one."

"Damn," said McCree, he scratched his head, casting a glance back at the bickering Hog and Rat. "You... Wish I could look at people that way. Seems like I only ever see the worst." He looked back to Zarya, smiling, "There's someone you're going to meet soon. I think you two'd really hit it off."

"Hooley dooley," muttered the rat. "Oy, your gun's done! Get over here!"

"After you," said McCree, bowing. Zarya stepped forward.

The rat had rebuilt an entire weight machine into a gun. Padding on the handles, a column of five kilo weights rested at the back, atop a mechanism that would automatically load the iron disks into a chamber.

"I'd hand it to you," said the Rat. "But I don't stand on ceremony."

"He can't lift it," said the Hog.

"Yeah, and there's that," the rat shot a hostile look at his partner, who didn't seem to notice.

Zarya picked it up, and found it similar in weight, though not in balance, to her particle cannon. It would take some getting used to, but it would prove quite the powerful tool.

McCree stopped gawking at the feat of strength, cleared his throat, and said, "So, uh… Where's mine?"

"I ain't a goddamn weapons factory, yankee! Wait your turn!"

…

Thaddeus Ellis would not abide such a grievous insult. He would not be humiliated. He would kill Aleksandra Zaryanova. And then, he'd kill Sombra, too, if only for the displeasure of his momentary lapse in control. Becoming that bestial thing, even for those brief moments to escape, had been the most demeaning of all. He was back in his element now. Outsmarting the threats rather than running from them. And Thaddeus found himself a very happy omnic.

Today had been strange. The past few weeks had been stranger still. For some reason, he had not been bothered. In fact, many people in the prison had been quite amiable, for a prison, at any rate. Even the new arrival he'd press-ganged into brief service, the 'Joe,' or 'Jack,' or whoever he was, had not attacked, even when he'd had the immediate and clear advantage. Thaddeus was starting to grow suspicious of these boons, even as much as he prayed they would continue. He'd been waiting for the perfect moment to slip out. All the while, he pretended to be a normal omnic, so that they would not put him in the Powered Wing, where escape would become nigh impossible.

For all the stupid things Sombra would come to regret, she had not done one stupid thing, and that was something Thaddeus might have considered himself grateful for a few minutes ago. She'd not released the Powered Wing from captivity. The Icebox housed the deadliest criminals. Many, many of those criminals were Oddities. Sombra knew enough to know that even she couldn't control them. But Thaddeus was better than her. Somehow, he knew he could make this work, even without his tools of trade.

There were still guards in the powered wing. Wisely, this is where the warden and his men decided to stay until Sombra had finished her business. Locked up Oddities behind were better than free psychopaths all around. They'd find soon that released Oddities behind were the worst of all. And so would Sombra.

He moved on, not stupidly, sneaking past whoever he could, killing the rest. When he finally arrived, the anticipation was almost too much. He scanned his top-level clearance ID to open door number one:

He was bound from head to toe, so that he could not move an inch. Smiling took a great deal of effort for him, but still, he did it.

"A visitor?" He said. His voice was a snake that crawled in one's ears, but Thaddeus was unafraid. His skin was ebon black, his body a void of blindness rather than a presence. His yellow, pointed teeth hovered in this eyeless void.

"I'm putting a team together," said Thaddeus Ellis, smiling back. "Interested?"

"Just point me towards the chaos," he said. "I'll make it bigger."

"Good, good, good," said Thaddeus giddily. He undid one of the straps, then stood back, cautiously. For a second, he wondered what he was doing. This was a madman, more likely than not an uncontrollable one. He'd have done better to find those who could be controlled, but it was too late.

"Come on, now," he said. "I won't bite. Not you. Not yet." But then he did bite. His own hand. The blood was a sickly color. Not the color of healthy human blood, though it was close enough to red. He dripped it onto the remaining binds, and they melted away, smoldering.

Thaddeus clapped in delight, wondering how this was going to play out. Everything else today had decided to go wrong. "And what do I call you?" he asked.

"I am Chaos," he said.

Behind door number two was a comparatively normal, grey-haired man. There was a black muzzle over his face, strapped tight. Someone did not want it coming off. Ever. It was practically stitched into his skin. He sat, looking forlorn, on the edge of his bed. He looked at Thaddeus and Chaos as they walked in.

"I'm putting a team together," Thaddeus said again. "Interested?"

He said nothing.

"He's not talking," said Thaddeus, "Why is he not talking?"

"You need a mouth to talk," said Chaos.

"Oh, oh. I forget!" Thaddeus said, laughing. He looked at the back of the man's head, fiddling with the magnetic straps. They would not open. The man gestured with his hands, making an 'o' with one, turning the other like a key.

"Well, isn't that the damndest-" began Thaddeus.

Chaos held up his hand, dripping the smoldering blood, as a proposition. The man stood with a start, shaking his head, eyes angry and scared. He gestured 'key' with double the vigor.

Chaos still came closer, licking his lips with a void black tongue, though one could only tell from the way it hid his teeth. The man stepped away, loosening into a stance that communicated readiness to fight. Chaos ripped the white sheet from the man's bed, and threw it over his own naked body, like a cape.

"Mind if I borrow this?" asked Chaos, but there was no question in his tone. The muzzled man had no further objections.

Thaddeus and his entourage then entered the 'trophy room.' Separate from the secure lockers that kept most of the prisoners' belongings, this was where the dangerous personal effects of the new arrivals went to be processed before being sent to a research lab or museum if they were a bit too mundane to be studied. Sadly, Thaddeus' gear was not there, it had been gone for many years. But there were some exceptional new arrivals. Their things could easily be re-purposed. Thaddeus drove his slender fingers through the neck of one guard, while Chaos sliced open another, staining his pure vestment with what was only to be the first of many red streaks. The muzzled man took the final steward, snapping his neck.

He took Jesse McCree's revolver and grenades, he found himself unable to take Zaryanova's weapon. The black and gold assault rifle he didn't recognize was rather large and clumsy for his taste. The muzzled man took it, seeming satisfied enough.

Chaos took Jesse McCree's prosthetic left hand, turning it over speculatively, and didn't put it down. He answered the questioning gazes he received with a very slow, very pleased, smile, and no one asked any questions.

Thaddeus Ellis, with Chaos and the muzzled man walking behind him in the corridors, released each prisoner with increasingly intense glee. They all complied to him immediately, infected by that same something Thaddeus felt growing in his mind, convalescing and reaching out from his central processor. He could feel the synapses firing in his lackey's minds. He could feel others conspicuously dormant. He realized that this should be impossible without his helmet providing him power, but here it was, happening. The omnics were most heavily affected. One, who'd been modified extensively, possessing eight arms, couldn't even speak anymore, though he'd been ranting up until the very moment Thaddeus entered the room. Somehow, he knew he was controlling them, just like the old days. Sombra was in for a reckoning.

The slaughter that commenced, Thaddeus had not seen the like since he'd been free. Guards were mowed down by pulse munitions, melted by acid blood, and ripped to shreds by claws of flesh and metal. As Chaos manically beat a man, again and again, beyond death with his hand-shaped club, his cloak grew redder and redder until it was dripping crimson.

Thaddeus felt something growing in his mind, something familiar.

An excited expression lit on the muzzled man's face. He dug around, finding the corpse of an important-looking guard, and pulled out a small, black rectangle. He plugged it into the back of his face mask, the clamps released, and it dropped to the ground. The silhouettes of the red marks remained on his face as he yawned and stretched out his jaw.

"Ho-ly _shit!_ " said the un-muzzled man in a booming voice. "God _damn_ , it feels good to yawn again! You guys have no clue."

Thaddeus smiled, flatly.

"Especially now that I can do this again," the man's throat and chest began to glow green, building in color and brightness until it finally flew out of his smiling mouth as a blast of energy, burning a smoking hole in one of the bodies. Thaddeus' smile grew genuine.

"Hey, you guys, you know, you are the _real_ motherfuckers, you know that? Thanks for getting me out. So where are we goin'?"

"We are going to kill Aleksandra Zaryanova," said Chaos.

"What, the bodybuilder? We're goin' all the way to Russia?"

"No," said Thaddeus. "She's here."

"Ho-ly _shit,_ really? What'd she fuckin' do?"

"I just want to kill her," Thaddeus shrugged. "Want to come?"

"Hell yeah. You're my kind of guys," he said. "Name's Khaos, by the by."

Chaos fell silent for a long moment. "What?"

"Name's Khaos. With a K. I thought it was pretty cool, myself. There something wrong with it?"

Chaos said nothing, only seethed silently, his acid blood surely boiling. Thaddeus reveled in the minds he was touching, almost to the extent that he didn't notice what his army was doing. Almost, for he was in their minds, and felt everything there.

"Speakin' of names," said Khaos with a 'K,' ignoring his cohort's irritation. "I never did catch yours, boss."

Thaddeus almost said it out loud, 'Thaddeus Ellis,' but he paused for a good, long while. That didn't sound right. He now felt closer to his other name than ever. The power was in him, strong enough to be used without the helmet. He'd thought his old gear to give him his power, but it seemed it only amplified what had always been there, what was growing and waiting for its day in the sun. He smiled then, wide and gleaming, and said, "Mindflayer."


End file.
